


In the Eye of the Storm

by HeyYahtzee



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyYahtzee/pseuds/HeyYahtzee
Summary: After being thrown in a dungeon and sentenced to death, Jester begins to lose faith. Will she leave the Mighty Nein, or can Beau convince her to stay?





	In the Eye of the Storm

In everything, she’d wished to be beautiful. 

All the long years listening at the doors of the brothel, trying on her mother’s shoes and her mother’s dresses and her mother’s pearls. Singing to the tunes floating under her door and sitting in the lounge, disguised, to watch the courtesans perform.

Away in her room she’d perform dances and ballads to her own dreams. One day, she’d say to the birds resting in the window, one day I will stun them with how magnificent I am, whether it is with my amazing talents or releasing an entire herd of sunbears into the dining room. She’d seen enough bustiers and enough dildos to know that while elegant things were beautiful, any manner of strange or frightening things could be desirable, coveted, and cherished. That anything could be beautiful, as long as it’s done with skill and passion. 

But the thing she loved most of all was the chaos.

The way a smile here or a wink there could change someone’s destiny forever.

The way one misplaced glass and two dish towels could transform a dull night of seduction into a kantankerous brawl in the lobby of a Gentleman’s Club. 

She’d been hiding on the roof outside of her window, listening to the sounds of breaking glass and howling men, when a figure in a green cloak appeared above her. He blocked out the stars, face obscured by his hood, but his smile shone through, wide and bright.

“Ah, there you are,” he’d said, “I’ve been looking for you, little one. You’re quite the beacon, you know.”

“A beacon of what, strange roof man?” she’d asked him, nine years old and already curious to a fault.

“Of faith,” he’d replied. 

And now everything was falling apart.

Was this her destiny? She’d watched people rise and fall her whole life, but she’d never considered the way that it sinks like iron into the marrow of your bones.

Beautiful, bittersweet, agonizing. 

She’s still lying in a crumpled heap on the floor when Beau returns to the room. There’s mud and some blood on Beau’s face, a gash across her shoulder and arm. She shuts the door softly and leans against it, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I got them to stop,” she says, “They won’t try to bust in here again until we’ve all had some sleep. Molly paid off the innkeeper and Caleb made sure we weren’t followed out of Zadash. Looks like we’re in the clear.”

Ten days. Ten days in a dungeon, alone, without even a window. 

And for what?

“Jester? Hey!” Beau waves a hand in front of her face.

Her mother hadn’t come for her, hadn’t even sent a letter. The Traveler had told her that he’d given her what he could. Molly had almost died rescuing her. Fjord couldn’t look at her. 

And then they’d gotten to the inn and within minutes everyone was shouting at each other. Demonizing. Defending. Asking her why she did it. Arguing over what to do next. Telling her all the horrible things they had to do to get to her. Digging apologies out of her like lumps of coal.

“Jester. Come on, you can’t just act like you’re fucking dead. Don’t you want to like, wash the blood off or something? Draw? Tell me everything about the stupid dungeon?” Beau asks, shaking her by the shoulder. 

Jester blinks.

“Fine. Whatever. Sleep on the floor.” Beau steps over Jester towards her half of the room and begins to strip out of her bloody clothes. 

Jester tilts her head to watch Beau pull a clean tunic out of her bag and shake it out. Beau had stepped between her and the others, hauled her off to their room, and then gone out to have a loud conversation with Fjord and Caleb in the hall. Molly was downstairs drowning in whiske and clutching his head. Nott had disappeared. 

_ “Yeah, I get it, she fucked up. Can we at least let her have a fucking second so she can defend herself?” _

_ “We just want answers, Beau. One second she’s standing next to me in the market and the next she’s being sentenced to death for heretical propaganda?” _

_ “What? Like we didn’t know she likes to play pranks?? _

_ “She is an adult, Beauregard. She nearly got all of us killed. There must be consequences!” _

_ “Yeah, consequences! Fine, we’ll have consequences! Tomorrow there will be consequences!” _

Beau’s shoulders are hunched as she wipes the blood and dirt off of her chest with her shirt and a fair amount of spit. There’s a small frown on her lips, eyes bloodshot. When she has most of the dirt off her face she hangs the shirt out the window and pours a pitcher of water over it. 

When she’s done she wipes her hands on her tunic, steps away from the window, and begins to do her evening stretches.

Outside, the first haze of morning is drifting over the trees.

“Do you think they will make me leave?”

Silence.

“No,” Beau says, voice low.

“They hate me, though,” Jester says, as if she’s considering the pros and cons of ordering a hot chocolate with marshmallows instead of whip cream. 

“They don’t hate you. They’re angry. They’ll get over it.”

“Are you angry?”

Beau twists and cracks her back.

Jester picks herself up off the floor, nearly falling but catching herself on the foot of the bed. Her muscles ache and her head swims with fog. She’s been up for nearly twenty-four hours. 

Still. Still.

She picks up her backpack, the old one, and tugs it over her shoulder. 

“Hey!”

Jester turns away as Beau scrambles to her feet.

“Jester!”

She has her hand on the doorknob when Beau slips between her and the exit, strong fingers wrapping around her wrist.

“Do not start this shit with me, Jester.”

Jester bites her lip, eyes stinging with tears she’d thought she’d cried already. She looks at Beau’s hand around her wrist instinctively, almost without seeing it, but knowing that everything else she could look at is hot with radiation, a minefield. 

“Come on, Jes. Talk to me. I can’t fucking help you if you keep this shit to yourself.”

Silence.

“She did not come for me,” Jester murmurs, and the tears follow, hot and poisonous, “I told her we were here, that I was in trouble. I thought someone would come, even if she did not come herself. Money, a letter, anything.”

Beau’s face falls, “Hey now, you don’t know-”

“I do, though! You said it, Molly said it, Caleb said it. We were in Zadash for months and I heard nothing. And yes, maybe it is still coming, ten days is not much, but tell me she is sending help. Truthfully.”

Beau sighs, “Jes…” She reaches up to wipe the tears off Jester’s face but Jester bats her hand away. 

“See! You do not believe anything is coming for me! No one believes it! I believed it and I was stupid. Stupid!” Her voice cracks and she shudders, ducking her head and squeezing her eyes shut against the sting of her tears.

“We all do stupid shit.” 

“And the traveler, he said the more deeds I do and the more people I change, then maybe she will find me and know where I am but then he tells me he cannot get me out of the dungeon and he did not come back! I thought I was going to die in there! Alone! Just like- Just like-”

A hollow sob catches in her throat. She takes a step forward towards Beau, then leans away again. She doesn’t deserve comfort. This is her fault. These are her consequences.

“You’re not alone,” Beau says, and her voice is raw, like it’s being scrapped out of her lungs with a spade, her eyes rimmed red.

“When I saw you all I thought that was true. But now…” she shakes her head, “They are right to be angry. I should be alone. Nothing bad happened when it was just me by myself.”

“Jester, they’re angry because they were  _ scared.”  _ Beau’s voice cracks and she looks up at the ceiling. 

For the first time, Jester looks at her. Beau shakes her head, squeezes her eyes shut, licks her lips, curls her free hand into a fist.

And then she’s sobbing, head bowed, hand over her face.

“I was so scared,” she works out between gasps, “I was so so scared.”

“I-what?” Jester asks through the tears.

“We thought we lost you forever.  _ I _ thought  _ I  _ lost you forever,” Beau cries, “Do you really think we’d come back for you if we didn’t love you? If we didn’t want you around?  _ Jester, please.” _

And she thinks, in the back of her mind, that it’s the most heartbroken her name has ever sounded.

“You love me?” It feels like a dream. Impossible. All of the love she’d thought she had turned to dust and now this?

“Don’t make me say it again, goddamit,” Beau says, wiping furiously at the tears on her cheeks.

Jester takes a deep breath, nods, and bursts into tears again. 

It’s as if everything she’d been holding finally has somewhere safe to go. She can’t keep it inside any longer, not with Beau breaking apart right in front of her,  _ confessing _ . The sadness, the homesickness, the abandonment and betrayal, the guilt, pour out of her in loud, ugly wails.

Beau wraps her in a crushing hug, pressing her forehead to Jester’s even as she shakes with her own painful sobs. Jester’s hands are balled up in the tunic, pulling Beau closer as she collapses into her. They sink to the floor together, rocking and touching, until they’re so tightly wound together Jester isn’t sure where she ends and Beau begins. 

In time, they become still, breath evening out, Beau’s hand moving rhythmically through Jester’s hair. 

“If we sit like this any longer we’re going to lose limbs,” Beau says softly.

Jester grunts in response, face pushed into Beau’s shoulder. She feels lighter, but boneless. Sunken. The floor is as comfortable as anything else.

“Come on, up.” Beau pulls away, untangling herself and then helping Jester to her feet. They stumble to Jester’s bed, Beau easing her down gently onto the mattress.

For a moment, she hovers over Jester, one arm on her waist, the other on the mattress to keep herself upright, and then Jester is tugging Beau into the bed with her, and Beau comes without an ounce of resistance, her eyes locked on Jester’s.

When they’re settled, Beau’s hand comes up to stroke Jester’s cheek. 

“You’re going to be okay, y’know,” she murmurs, “Not today. Or this week. But you will be.” 

The corners of Jester’s mouth turn up in a little hint of a smile, then relax again as she drifts into a deep slumber. 

She dreams of wild fireworks and purple seas. 

A man in a dark green cloak on a rooftop.

A woman in blue walking through the streets of a city with no name.


End file.
